Stop Being Afraid Of Picking A Niche!

Good morning, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Welcome to day one of 31 days of going live in the end of 2022. I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of ready for this year to be over. I'm really excited for 2023 and everything that it's bringing. Just a little housekeeping. I am going live to the Facebooks, to LinkedIn, to YouTube and to Twitter. Sometimes not all comments show up from everywhere. So if you're tuning in, welcome. It's so great to have you here. And if you're commenting and I'm not calling you out because I to be interactive know that it's not you. Sometimes the technology just does not work with us. And hello Hossam. I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Good morning wherever you are in the world. Today I want to talk about picking a niche. And when I started I didn't realize how big a fear this was going to be for my clients. Now it's not the top fear. The top fear would be charging too much. My clients are very, very fear fearful. Oh God. I just got distracted. So we have Akrom. Welcome. Good morning. Oh God, Fanny. Thank you. Yeah. If you missed my post, LinkedIn has decided to abbreviate my name McManus. They take off the MCM, hence the name Chastity. Hello, good morning, Shailandra. Shailandra, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly and I don't know if you can type it and tell me how to pronounce it, but just let me know if I'm getting it wrong. Okay. Anyway, good morning everyone. So when I started my business, one of the things that became very clearly apparent is that people are terrified of picking a niche. Okay. Now let's talk about some other fears that people have. Okay, so charging too much. And when I say charging too much, I don't mean you're charging too much. I mean most people are afraid of charging any amount that will actually equal a full time income for them. Okay. Because they're worried that a their clients can't afford it. Be that they're going to be seen as greedy or money grubbing or evil and a whole laundry list of things that go along with that. We're going to be talking about relationship with money later this month. Don't worry, we will get there. The other one is the sales call. How scary the sales call is. And sure it is nerve wracking. I Used to be in sales. And I remember when I first started. Yeah, it's nerve wracking. And I want to let you know, if you have your own business and you're terrified of running sales calls, I just be aware that I have to train my clients who come from a sales background. I have to train them on how to run a sales call for their business. It's a very different experience. Okay? So if you don't come from sales, know that even people who do come from sales have to relearn the process to sell their own services often. Okay. It's a very vulnerable setting because you feel like you are for sale. You feel like people are rejecting you. And, yeah, that's scary. But today I want to talk about picking a niche. Now, I want to clear up some. Some misconceptions, I guess, about niche. It's niche, not niche. Okay? Niche, like N, E, E, S, H. If you pronounce it niche, like, no one's going to throw a rock at you or anything, but it's just going to be wrong. Okay? Now here's where people get freaked out about picking a niche is they worry that if you pick a niche and you name a small group of people that you work with, that no one else is going to want to work with you, that you're going to scare away the whole world of potential clients. And if you're a coach or consultant or a copywriter or anyone really who provides a service, that's scary because you know your skill, you know how talented you are, you know that you have the capability of helping pretty much anyone. All right. And good morning to Sao Paulo. Hello, Leandro. Welcome. You know, you have that capability, and the idea that you're going to scare away potential clients who just don't fit a demographic is terrifying. Now, here's where there's actually a miscommunication about what a niche actually is. So people often think about niche and they think, they hear things like, oh, well, you have to pick a gender that you work with. You have to pick an age range. You have to pick, like a career type. Okay, now kind of like, sure, you can, but that's actually not helpful to people. All right? So a niche is not actually a list of demographic information. Okay? So like, if I were to say, hey, listen, I'm a business coach and I help women who are ages 27 to 35 who live in Connecticut and who, I don't know, like, work full time, that's not a niche. Okay? So, sure. But if I do go out and Say that I'm going to scare away people who don't live in Connecticut. I'm going to scare away men. I'm going to scare away anyone, any woman who's younger than 27 or older than 35. Okay? I'm going to scare away anyone who's already quit their job and who wants to start a business. I'm also going to scare away people who have two jobs, you know, so that is not how you pick a niche. How you do pick a niche is you describe the problems that your ideal clients have and what they desire more than anything. Okay? So if you're, if you're a business coach like I am, then you want to say, hey, listen, I help folks who, you know, are working full time usually who are so tired of working for someone else. They are so tired of not having control of their time. They're so tired of not being able to focus on the things they love doing. They know that they can help other people. They know they've just gotten trained in something and they know that they can have an impact somewhere else. They also know they can make a crap ton more money if they were to work on their own, but they have no idea how to do it. And they're really afraid that if they go out on their own that they're not going to make it. But here's what I know is possible for them is that they can build a multiple six figure business working less than 40 hours and having all the freedom and flexibility in their life that they want. Okay? Notice how I use language that my ideal client would typically use with their best friends. Okay. I'm not saying, I'm not describing like, you know, they have like this internal thing that's telling them that they can't do it and blah, blah, blah, blah, like, yes, that's the root of the problem they have. They have like a saboteur that's coming up. I'm not saying that they're feeling unfulfilled. Like, that's very coachy talk. Okay. It's really common for new business owners when they're picking a niche and they're trying to describe who they work with to start describing like their ex in their expert language, what's actually going on for this client? I just want to say hello, Patrick, good morning. Over here in kenya, it's noon, 15 hours. Masai Margaret, which may have you. Okay, great. If I'm ever in Kenya, I'll message you. So here's what I want to remind you is that when you pick a List of demographics? Yes. You're going to rule people out. They're going to see you posting. They say, oh, that's not relevant to me. I'm not that person. But when you start listing the problems that your ideal client has, even if they're not the right demographics, when you start listing the problems and the desires that they have in their own language, what happens actually is you get people who don't necessarily fit your ideal client definition perfectly, but they fit it perfectly. You know, you're speaking to their soul. You're naming the fears that they mentioned to their wife or their best friend the day before. You are naming things that they've only ever thought to themselves about the doubts they have about going out on their own. And you'll get these adorable messages from people who, I don't know, who've been following you for a really long time, but haven't told you that they're following you. And I got these when I first started out, and I was really surprised by it. You know, it's usually a message like, hey, I know you only work with coaches, which I don't. I don't only work with coaches, but, you know, a lot of my messaging used to be about coaches. I know you only work with coaches, but I'm a lawyer and I'm having all the problems that you're listing. Would you ever consider working with me, too? Okay, that's what's on the table when you focus on what's actually going on in their life and what they want more than anything over the demographic information. Okay? So the mistake we make with picking a niche is one that actually does create our worst fears. Okay? When we list out all the demographic information and say that that's who we work with, it equals only getting those people and oftentimes like those people, when we say it that way, when we just list the demographics, why would they want to work with you? You don't know them. You just listed their age and their gender and where they live and stuff like that. Like, you don't get them. You know, when you list their problems, when you list the things that they really want, that's when they have a reason to reach out to you. Now, I want. I want to just point out something that is going to sound like really cruel and. And cold and something that, like, you're saying, I don't do that, but just stick with me, okay? Just stick with me. I don't mean in a mean way. Whenever we meet a new person, our brain is scanning for, are you Useful to me? Are you useful to me? So if you're in line at Starbucks and you're chatting up the person in front of you and they're explaining how they're a home builder, you know, they're construction, they run a construction company, they're a home builder, blah, blah, blah. Now, maybe you're not planning on building a house, or maybe you are. If you are, then you're going to get their card, right? They are. They are so useful to you. You're gonna be like, oh, my God, this is amazing. I'm so happy. You seem really nice. You seem to know what you're talking about. Let me grab your card. I'm actually planning on building a house next year. Would love to talk about the plans with you, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay? But if you're not building a house, your brain is gonna start scanning for are you useful to someone I know? Are you useful to someone in my world? Because here's the thing we love, we love helping ourselves, but we also love helping our community. We love introducing people who are useful to each other. Because what ultimately happens is we up level our social capital. Because if I helped you, and I helped you, you're both going to want to reciprocate. And this is a natural human thing to do. It, it's actually how our brains work to ensure our sur. Okay, because back in the day when, when resources were scarce and we had to survive within our tribe group, you wanted people to like. You wanted people to respect you. And in, in many cases, you wanted people to owe you a favor. It's a natural human compulsion. Okay? So this is why it's so important to describe your niche. And in the same way that they describe their problems and their hopes and dreams to their best friends. Because if you're talking to me in Starbucks and you're explaining to me how you might be useful to me, I need to understand it for my friend. I need to understand that you are useful to my friend because my friend was just talking about that in that exact way. You know, how hard is it to find a construction company right now, you know, or a construction company that is environmentally friendly. Like maybe my friend has a parcel of land that's right on the marsh, and there's a lot of restrictions about what they can and can't do in their building process. And maybe this construction worker, this construction company owner is telling me, yeah, like one of our specialties is we are environmentally friendly. You know, we know how to work within the confines of environmental restrictions. And that's our specialty. You know, we're brought on for certain projects. Like, oh, my God, my friend was just talking about that. That's so. That's so useful to them. Let me get your card. All right, so here's what I want you to walk away with today. I want you to walk away with, how am I telling people that I'm useful to them? How am I telling people that I'm either useful to them or I'm useful to their people in their life? Right? Patrick did this kind of. I don't. I. I'm sorry, Patrick. I don't really understand your text or your message, but something about a game park. There's something about a game park. He's trying to show that he's useful to us if we ever go to Kenya and we want to go to a game park. All right, I. I would. I would change some things about that, but in probably the setting, probably not the best environment, probably not the most useful environment to do that. But I want you to figure out, like, how you could very simply say, this is how I'm useful to people in my world. And this is kind of like the elevator pitch. You know, when people ask you what you do, people actually don't give a fuck about what your title is. Okay? All my coaching clients, and I can say this hands down, all of them at some point has gotten all flipped out about what kind of coach they are. Am I a mindset coach, Am I an executive coach, Am I a leadership coach, Am I this kind of coach, blah, blah, blah. And my answer is always, no one cares. No one cares because no one knows what it means. Like, and if they do know what it means, they have a meaning that may not match up with what you're hoping that they will interpret. What they care about is, who are you useful to, who do you help and what do you help them do? Okay? So when people ask you what you do, your answer should be, well, here's who I help. Okay, so I'm going to be talking a little bit more about niche later this month. I have a couple things coming out I'm really excited for, and I hope you're excited for them, too. Just a little teaser there, but for now, I'm going to leave you with that this morning. I will be going live every day this month. I also have a live with David Fryman and Tyler Cook this evening in Bizlab Live. You won't want to miss that. It's at 7pm Eastern, but for now, I hope I've given you enough to chew on when it comes to picking your niche. And I just want to say thank you for those of you who've tuned in and commented. Hassam, Akram, Fani, even though you called out my name. Thank you. Chesby, Shalandra, Leandro, Patrick, and Doreen. Oh, and hi Doreen. I didn't put your comment up. I'm sorry. Thank you all for joining. I hope this is super useful and I look forward to going live with you every day this month. So. So tune in. I don't know that it's always going to be this early, to be honest, but we will see, won't we? Anyway, have a great morning, everyone, and I will talk to you all soon. Bye.